Must-have gardening tools

There's a huge range of gardening tools nowadays – you'll find most of them on display at Lakeside. Though they're all great to have, there are some you'll use every time you go in the garden. 

Digging spade: makes heavy-duty soil turning jobs easy. Lightweight, easy-clean stainless steel blades are best.

Garden fork: great for digging stony soils, mixing in a layer of compost, or weeding larger areas.

Hand trowel: essential for transplanting seedlings and planting bulbs: blades marked with measurements make judging planting distances easy

Weeding fork: careful weeding among established plants needs an easy-to-manoeuvre hand fork.

Secateurs: back-pocket essentials for all gardeners at pruning time, but also for dead-heading and taking cuttings

Watering can: from one-litre seedling cans to 10-litre behemoths, a watering can makes sure plants never go short

Wheelbarrow: the garden workhorse, whether you're pruning roses, barrowing muck or clearing a patch of weeds

Dutch hoe: hoe off weed seedlings once a week and you'll always have a pristine plot

Rake: use for raking spring seedbeds, levelling soil in summer, or gathering autumn leaves to make leaf mould soil conditioner.

Please ask a member of the Lakeside team for more information about choosing the tools which are right for you.